14 DAY TRIAL // For the fifth week in a row, the Nintendo DS manages to hold off the PlayStation Portable to be Japan's best sold gaming hardware. But the overall sales of gaming consoles have continued to slow as the interest in videogames launched during this period plummets.
The Nintendo DS sold exactly 51,412 units, which means that it's 5,000 handhelds below what it managed to sell last week. The PlayStation Portable lost even more sales, as a 7,000 downturn means that it only shipped 34,462 units to customers. Sony says that it is expecting sales to further go down while stocks are emptied as the new console version, dubbed PSP-3000, is getting closer to its launch date.
The Nintendo Wii, despite being the next sold full fledged console in the United States, lost 2,500 units and only managed to sell 33,128 consoles to its customers. The PlayStation 3 sold less than the PlayStation 2, its older and poorer brother, 8,317 to 8,810. Both consoles are doing much better than the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, which sold only 1,044 units this week, as stocks are not replenished by the company which plans to re-launch the console with a lower price tag in the coming weeks.
The best selling game of the week was Rhythm Tengoku Gold for the Nintendo DS, which managed to sell some 55,000 copies. Wii Fit profited from the lack of new launches and jumped up to number two with 32,000 games shipped while the highest new entry was, at number three, Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS. It is developed by Mistwalker; it is a role playing game that sold only 21,000 units.
The videogames top 50 featured 26 titles for the Nintendo DS, nine for the Nintendo Wii, six games for the PlayStation Portable, just four for the PlayStation 3, three for the PlayStation 2 and two for the Xbox 360.